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The U.S. Department of Education revealed major steps to address campus sexual assault Friday, the same day UC President Janet Napolitano announced the formation of a systemwide task force to address some of the same issues on UC campuses.

Responding to mounting student pressure to improve the prevention and handling of sexual assault, the new federal regulations require institutions of higher education to comply with increased transparency and security-related requirements aimed at curbing and better responding to dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. Major changes include strengthening confidentiality protections for survivors and adding more detailed categories of crimes for which campuses need to publish statistics. At the state level, the UC task force will oversee and aim to support the prevention of sexual assault.

The task force includes members of the UC Board of Regents, campus police departments, survivor advocacy groups, administrators and students who will together work to employ “innovative, evidence-based and consistent practices,” according to a UC press release Friday.

“Sexual violence is a serious crime that we will never tolerate,” Napolitano said in the press release.

According to UC spokesperson Dianne Klein, the task force and federal changes were unrelated, even though they were revealed the same day.

The new rules from the federal government alter sections of the Clery Act, a federal law that requires institutions of higher education that participate in federal financial aid programs to track and publish information about crimes — including sexual assault — that take place on or around college campuses. According to a Thursday press release from the Department of Education, the regulations came about after talks with colleges, advocacy organizations, law enforcement officials and sexual assault survivors.

The changes come amid a nationwide movement to address sexual violence and harassment on college campuses. They aim to respond to the concerns voiced by students at UC Berkeley and other campuses that college administrators allegedly mishandled sexual assault investigations.

In May of last year, nine UC Berkeley students filed a Clery Act complaint against the campus for allegedly discouraging survivors from reporting incidents of sexual assault. Four months ago, 31 students refiled the Clery Act complaint and filed an additional Title IX complaint, which alleges that administrators failed to properly respond to cases of sexual assault. The Title IX investigation was launched in late March, although no Clery Act investigation has been announced.

UC Berkeley junior Sofie Karasek, a complainant and campus organizer for improved sexual assault policies and campus investigations, said she is optimistic about the changes at the federal level.

“It’s good that survivors were involved in drafting these new rules,” Karasek said. “Transparency is key. It allows the university to be held accountable.”

Campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore said in an email that the campus is supportive of the federal regulations that address increased transparency and reporting of sexual assault incidents.

“I’m glad that they’re redefining important words and making it more inclusive,” said UC Berkeley sophomore Meghan Warner, who filed the complaints along with Karasek.

Warner and Karasek are just two of the many students on campus who have mobilized for improved policies. Warner said she supports the revised definitions from the federal government, including adopting a broader definition of rape. Before, the exact definition of rape differed by state.

Still, Warner wants to see the campus doing more to address sexual assault, especially in terms of sustained and mandatory education and awareness programs. Warner said she hopes the campus will be more inclined to improve its policies now that the federal government has taken additional steps in that direction.

It’s about time that both the Feds and US universities stepped in to address the horrific crimes being perpetrated against women. Situations such as Stanford permitting a student to graduate despite his being found guilty of sexual assault should never happen.

Having said this, one might add that whatever actions the universities take, they should never supersede that of the legal system. Remember, in the case of the Duke Lacrosse team those young men were fully exonerated of the allegations against them and it’s a good thing that Duke’s Administration didn’t succumb to the demands by numerous feminists that the accused be punished prior to the legal system running its course.

But if women and, for that matter, men truly wish to address a prevalence of sexual assault, they should look at the Islamic world and call for BDS vs those sexist societies. For example, in Egypt feminists there say that scores of women are sexually assaulted daily. Moreover, to this day the vast majority of females in both Egypt and Sudan are circumcised as infants. Furthermore, “honor murder” perpetrated by fathers and brothers against female teenagers who allegedly transgress the will of the father are regularly perpetrated in the Palestinian territories and Jordan, with scant if any punishment meted out to the perpetrator.

Hence, women at Cal who care about the fate of their sisters worldwide should read the works of renowned feminist Phyllis Chesler and demand the severance of US aid to those who so frequently abuse women in every way, starting with the Islamic societies of Egypt, Sudan, Jordan and the Palestinian territories…

Mel Content

But if women and, for that matter, men truly wish to address a
prevalence of sexual assault, they should look at the Islamic world and
call for BDS vs those sexist societies.

True, but these feminists don’t consider Muslims their enemies, but merely fellow travelers in their cultural war on mainstream American society. This has NOTHING to do with stopping “rape” or protecting women. It’s all about reaffirming their victim status, nothing more…

Dan Spitzer

Mel, as you intimate there is more involved for many feminists than protecting women. For all too many feminists, the ideology that the US and Europe are evil incarnate because of their successful capitalist perspective thereby makes the worst offenders of women, Islamists, inappropriate for criticism because the Muslim perspective is so hostile to the West. Thus by definition, for many of these women, the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” and thus not subject to criticism, despite the fact that no societies treat their women worse than does Muslim culture.
Exemplary is new student regent Sadia Saifuddin, who led the fight to support BDS vs Israel, a society where women are better treated than virtually anywhere else on the planet. Saifuddin would never dream of calling for BDS toward the country of her heritage, Pakistan, where females-second class citizens-can be shot for simply attending school. What a ridiculous hypocrite she and her pro-Palestinian allies are!